The present invention relates to entering text into a computing device. More particularly, the invention relates to entering text using a limited keyboard or other input device.
Small computing devices such as pagers, personal information managers (PIM) devices and portable phones are used with an ever increasing frequency by people in their day to day activities. With the increase power now available from microprocessors used to run these devices, the functionality of these devices are merging. For instance, many portable phones now can be used to access and browse the Internet as well as can be used to store personal information such as addresses, phone numbers and the like.
In view that these computing devices are being used for other functions, in many applications it is necessary to enter text into the computing devices. Unfortunately, due to the desire to keep these devices as small as possible in order that they are easily carried, a conventional keyboard having all the letters of the alphabet as isolated buttons is usually not possible due to the limited surface area available on the housing of the computing device.
There is thus an ongoing need to improve upon the methods used to input text into computing devices such as small, portable or mobile devices. In addition, the improved method may also be helpful in entering text into computers for those people having limited physical abilities.